Has the heavyweight division ever sucked as much as today?

Aside from the two Klitschko brothers, who I rate very highly in their abilities as champions, or title holders, whatever you prefer, has the heavyweight division ever sucked so much as today? Your opinions please.

 

It's rarely been as thin on for talent as it is right now. The Klitschkos are totally dominant and naturally, as brothers, won't be fighting each other.

So even with the overabundance of titles available there is still little interest in the division.

 

I've never seen it so bad, no.

There are some potentially good fighters coming through, though.

 

Probably Marciano's era and Holmes' when you saw lower division fighters rising up to heavyweight and becoming major players or old guys hanging on way past their primes like now because of a general thinness of the heavyweight division.

 

Lazy comparison really and that's being kind - if I was being more harsh I might say you know jack about those two eras really haha but I won't coz we're all friends on here - but I got to say Marciano's era?? That was one of the deepest eras for me for actual boxing talent that was around?? Ezzard Charles Jersey Joe Walcott Archie Moore three of the very best all round boxers who ever fought? Harold Johnson was a great skilled boxer too. Dangerous killers like Bob Satterfield and Rex Layne educated boxers like Roland LaStarza and Harry Kid matthews, good level contenders like Niño Valdes and Bob Baker and a plethora of other talents below the radar who on their day could hurt anyone like Clarence Henry, Tommy Harrison, Coley Wallace, Billy Gilliam, Jimmy Bivins, even the journeymen scene of that era was loaded with guys who could've clean the whistle of most of the heavyweights around at the moment - that being said I think there are at least a lot of fights I'd definately be interested in see were they to be made mainly not involving the name Klitschko - Thomas Adamek I like too but then I'd probably put him at the level of someone like, say, Charley Norkus from the 50's maybe?

 

Charles, Moore, Johnson, Satterfield, Bivins = light heavyweights
Marciano, Walcott, LaStarza = Cruiserweights
Not a good time for guys over 200 pounds.

 

There are some quality operators lurking about outside the Klitschkos, Chambers being the most noteworthy in my opinion, and a general over-representation of power punchers. The problem as I see it is simply that the best contenders don't fight each other enough, or simply don't fight enough period, fighters like Arreola come in out of shape far too often, and there just seems to be a general apathy with a lot of heavyweights today, a lack of desire to really get in there and have a good go. Also, with the general shift of the division towards Germany, I can't find myself getting worked up about fights as much as I used to. No knock on the Germans intended, but I find the crowd atmosphere to be really dead compared to the American scene of the 90s. Huck Povetkin was a minor exception, due to the amount of rowdy Huck supporters in the crowd. Now that was a fun fight, sloppy though it was. More of that, and less of the Solises and the Boytsovs (skilled but utterly desireless wastes of talent) and you'd be on your way to a revival of the glory days.

And it'd also help if someone told Arreola that a Modelo Negra isn't a substitute for a protein shake.

 

Your really missing so much if the bottom line is being 220 plus - this is not top trumps you know? Maybe we should just forgo fights from now on and just save everybody the effort by declaring the winner at the scales based on who comes out heaviest??

 

:goodagreed on that one

 

If you asked me a couple of years ago I would say that I was happy that the Brother soon would hang the gloves up but now im just sad.


One good thing about the heavyweight division is that once the brothers retire the division will be open for new exciting matchups and it will give the impression to the general public that the division is strong because the matchups are closer, GOD DAMN THAT WAS A LONG SENTENCE.


And another thing that kinda bothers me is that there are talent out there BUT, they don't fight eachother enough for you to get a clear sense of a worthy title challenger.

But I mean the division right now isn't exactly utter ****, the brothers are quite entertaining especially Wladimir. Then there is Haye say what you will about him but he brings back some Hype to the division and hopefully he and Vitali can get it on next summer.

 

the division isn't really bad. what is bad is the match making that's been going on for the last few years.

there is a sense that when wlad fights someone they're being thrown to the wolves and that's because the contenders weren't fighting each other. I think that's changing though.

After Wlad, the next few names are:

Vitali
Haye
Chambers
Povetkin
Adamek
Pulev

Each of them have been beating rated opponents, Helenius and Chisora will hopefully rematch allowing another genuine contender to emerge. Then you have Fury, Arreola and Price knocking on the door.

I know Wlad won't fight Vitali and there's little pointing fighting Chambers and Haye again but that leaves 5-7 guys who have actually earnt a shot at the title and in doing so would enhace Wlad's legacy should he beat them.

Haye was a great victory, JMM was a name opponent with a big payday and Thompson was a mando, Wach was a terrible opponent but I guess it enabled him to keep busy. Hopefully we'll see Wlad taking out some of the top 5 names again and continuing his stranglehold of the division.

I don't care who Vitali fights as he's not really a title claimant since he ranks himself below Wlad, so he should just make as much money as he can whilst he still has it in him.

 

You make a fair point, but in Lewis' era, Tyson's era, Holmes' era and Ali's era, nobody was ever asking if their era was the worst in history. It was a subject that was never constantly being brought up.
That in itself says everything.

 

So you're saying you are against weight classes?

Bob Foster tried to move up to heavyweight in the 60s and 70s, but Ernie Terrell, Zora Folley, Joe Frazier, and Muhammad Ali just swatted him down. Michael Spinks did fine against a past it Holmes, about as well as Charles did against a past it Louis. But he didn't reign long before Tyson knocked him off his pedestal. Light heavyweights and cruiserweights do great when all the real heavyweights are ancient or have no talent, but when you put them in with real talented big men they get squashed.

There have always been big men in the sport, and when they had talent and youth they were the champ. Marciano is lucky he lived in the valley between Joe Louis and Sonny Liston and there wasn't a man over 200 pounds in the top 10 to challenge him. That was a very rare period. Before that Harry Wills, Jack Johnson, James J. Jeffries, the Baer brothers, Peter Jackson, George Godfrey, and John L. Sullivan were big guys. Marciano doesn't reign long and doesn't go undefeated in an era filled with guys like those.

 

Looking at the history of contemporary opinions of the heavyweight division, I conclude that it always sucked!

 

To be honest with you, the 200lb+ heavyweight is something of an artefact of the post 198s training regime.

Yes they have always been around, but in an era where adding muscle mass was discouraged, they are always going to be the minority.